ZANU
PF admits millions owed to displaced farmers

ZANU PF has admitted that it does have an obligation to pay
compensation to farmers forced off their properties in the land grab
campaign, also admitting it illegally seized many farms.

This was
revealed in a Central Committee report tabled before the ZANU PF Annual
Conference over the weekend. The report said that farms covered by Bilateral
Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) were seized, in
contravention of those agreements. These include properties belonging to
citizens from Denmark, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands and
Switzerland. The report detailed that out of 153 BIPPA protected farms, 116
were taken over under the land grab.

“The agreements require that
Government pays fair compensation in currency of former owner’s choice for
both land and improvements for acquired BIPPA farms. In this regard,
Government has an outstanding payment of 16 million Euros awarded to Dutch
farmers,” the report states.

The Dutch compensation claim was filed by
farmers who lost land in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2002. The group of
farmers took their case to the International Centre for the Settlement of
Investment Disputes (ICSID), which ruled in their favour in 2009 and ordered
Zimbabwe to pay them 8.8 million euros compensation, with an additional 10%
interest for every year since the farms were seized.

The Central
Committee report meanwhile said there was no money to pay
compensation.

“The Dutch farmers who took the country to the
International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes and won have not
been paid. In addition, a German family, the Von Pezolds, has also taken us
to the ISCID for their farm which we acquired and partly resettled. We are
framing our defence with the Attorney General’s Office. The Von Pezolds
claim is in the region of US$600 million.”

The takeover of farms has
also continued unabated with the ZANU PF report saying that more than 200
farmers are being prosecuted for “refusing” to give up their
land.

Former commercial farmer Ben Freeth said the campaign will not end
while there is no outcry from key sectors of Zimbabwean society, namely the
MDC parties in government. He warned that ZANU PF is carrying out “ethnic
cleansing.”

“This is racist. This is apartheid. Zimbabwe will remain
hungry and remain poor so long as this backwards, feudal system is able to
persist and no one does anything about it,” Freeth said.

Meanwhile
ZANU PF has finally taken over the farm that used to belong to Ian Smith,
with the Land Ministry handing the property to a college. The remaining
portion of Gwenoro farm was the final part of the property not to be taken
over in over a decade of land seizures.

Mugabe
‘upbeat’ about electoral victory following Gweru conference

Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF are
predicting a massive electoral victory in next year’s presidential and
parliamentary polls, following the party’s 13th annual conference held in
Gweru.

The conference, described by the state controlled media as a
resounding success, left the party faithful upbeat about reclaiming lost
ground to the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The very
first ZANU PF congress, at its formation, was also held in the Midlands
capital and Mugabe was the only surviving founding member to be at the just
ended conference.

Apart from 5,000 party delegates the conference was
attended by the country’s top military junta. These were Defence Forces
commander General Constantine Chiwenga, army commander General Phillip
Sibanda, Air Force chief Air Marshal Perence Shiri, Prisons Commissioner
retired General Paradzai Zimondi and CIO director-general, Happyton
Bonyongwe.

Also in attendance was the chief of police, Augustine Chihuri.
The MDC-T’s finance minister, Tendai Biti, said service chiefs should not
have been at this gathering.

Responding to this comment one media
outlet quoted Chihuri as saying:“We are part and parcel of the revolution.
We cannot be divorced from that revolution; those who are thinking of
leading this country without respecting those who fought for it must stop
dreaming.

In 2008 ZANU PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first
time since Independence in 1980, but Mugabe told his supporters his party is
poised to snatch its parliamentary majority back.

The party believes
that its indigenization policy, which compels foreign companies to transfer
51percent of their ownership into the hands of locals, will resonate well
with the electorate.

In fact during his address to delegates Mugabe said
he wanted foreign firms operating in the country to become fully owned and
controlled by Zimbabweans.

Other resolutions that came out of the
conference included an increase in the jamming of private radio stations,
such as SW Radio Africa.ZANU PF’s head of the Media, Science and Technology
Committee, Olivia Muchena, urged the party to adopt technology to jam
‘foreign based broadcasts’ into Zimbabwe. It seems that she is unaware that
they already have this technology, and regularly use it.

Economic
analyst Bekithemba Mhlanga told SW Radio Africa that ZANU PF’s policies had
left average Zimbabweans much worse off.

‘There is no prospect for
economic growth where people want to reap where they did not sow.
Zimbabweans will see through this whole thing about indigenization, that it
is not a policy objective but a vote catching thing. This is just an
electoral campaign tool especially now that Mugabe is pushing for 100
percent and not just 51 percent,’ Mhlanga said.

Our Bulawayo
correspondent Lionel Saungweme told us that what came out of the conference
were self serving resolutions that will not be well received by the
electorate.

He explained that voters in Zimbabwe were now more
sophisticated than before and are more concerned about the state of the
economy and can see through policies that enrich just a few
individuals.

‘They are confident that the people are going to reward them
with their votes for dishing out the indigenization policy. This typifies
the misplaced prioritization of things by ZANU PF. They want to grab things
for themselves and not work on things that benefit the citizens of the
country,’ Saungweme said.

The Standard newspaper said the whole
conference was lacking any atmosphere and that there was an air of
‘uncertainty’ among delegates. The paper said Mugabe’s age has also finally
caught up with him and he frequently had to lean on the podium and some
times his speech was slurred.

He also showed he was a little behind the
times – his lapel badge read: ‘Vote for ZANU PF………….in 2005.’

"There is no
wounded lion" President Tsvangirai tells Mugabe

President Tsvangirai today castigated statements by Robert
Mugabe at his dead Zanu PF conference that this time he will fight like a
wounded lion.

“There is no wounded lion. Who would you want to fight? Who
will you convince? To kill who? The people know what they want and they will
determine it at the right time,” he said.

Speaking during the burial
of Nyarai Makone at Glen Forest Cemetery today, President Tsvangirai took a
swipe at the spirit of violence saying there is need to end that flame of
violence. “There is no need for anymore confrontation. The problem we have
now is those who want to spread the flame of violence. If we are able to
deal with this flame, this country has a bright future. I continue to
encourage you not to fight each other. Do not be aggressive to other people.
Do not kill each other”.

He encouraged the Makone family to grieve with
hope as Nyarai was a gift and a flower from God given to her family, adding
that in God’s season, he decided to pluck the flower.

He said he is
mourning as a parent as Nyarai was just like a child to him as the Makones
and the Tsvangirais were close family friends. “I am mourning an assertive
daughter. Nyarai was a unique girl and I can tell you that she was very
brilliant. But unfortunately, all that brilliance has gone,” he
lamented.

President Tsvangirai said: “Nyarai represents a generation
of Zimbabwean youths, whose expectations we should strive to fulfill. The
gap between their expectations and what we are delivering as a country is so
wide. Every youth here expects to have a job, to have a family.

To
grow up to be successful especially with the way we are educating them. The
question we have as parents is what future are we providing for our
children? Are we providing a positive and bright future? Are we providing an
aspiration for all the youth in this country that they would love to lead a
better life?”

He added that Zimbabwe has talented young people and
the parents need to instil hope in the children.

Nyarai passed away
on Friday at her parents home in Domboshava. She was 32.

'No
reforms no polls' - SADC warns intransigent Mugabe

SOUTHERN African leaders have
concluded a regional strategic meeting in Tanzania with a call for
“responsive political will” from Zimbabwe’s unity government partners and a
vow not to “rest until peace is restored in eastern DRC.”Heads of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) had gathered for a weekend
extraordinary summit to deliberate on the unfolding DRC conflict and review
mediation efforts in Zimbabwe and Madagascar.SADC pledged to mobilise 4,000
troops for a neutral force that will be deployed in DRC where M23 rebels
have over the past months mounted a vicious onslaught against the government
of President Joseph Kabila.Tanzania promised to contribute a battalion of
soldiers while other SADC nations said they will "activate" a standby
brigade of 3,000 soldiers by mid-December. It was not immediately clear if
Zimbabwe will also be contributing towards the force.“I want to inform
SADC that we will not rest until peace is restored in eastern DRC,” said
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, chairman of the SADC Troika on Peace,
Defence and Security.South Africa weighed in with a logistical support
pledge for the standby force.President Jacob Zuma said: "The Summit has
reaffirmed the commitment of our region to collectively pursue regional
peace and stability, particularly with regard to the security situation in
the eastern DRC."And on the long-drawn Zimbabwean question, SADC urged Zanu
PF and MDC politicians to expedite the constitution revision process and put
the new draft charter to a national referendum ahead of elections that
President Robert Mugabe insists should be held in March, even without any
major reforms.“We should continue to appeal for responsive political
will [in Zimbabwe],” Kikwete said.SADC commended Zuma – regional
facilitator in Harare – for his ongoing mediation efforts and urged him to
continue pushing for resolution of all outstanding issues in the Global
Political Agreement, including political and electoral reforms.The
power-sharing government’s pursuit for a new democratic constitution has
stalled, and the charter’s completion is in jeopardy as Zanu PF and MDC
continue to haggle over its contents.Although the two MDC formations
have endorsed the draft – crafted by a parliamentary committee after
gathering public opinion – Zanu PF has rejected it, objecting to various
governance issues including devolution of power from central government to
provinces.The party argues that devolution is a divisive concept, adding
that it might be exploited by separatists to push a cessationist agenda.
Zanu PF has also protested the whittling down of presidential executive
powers, among other issues.

Crackdown
on rights activists continues ahead of elections

Rights groups on Monday once again voiced
fears that authorities in the country have launched a crackdown on rights
activists as the country gears up for elections set for next
year.

With just months to go until crucial elections in 2013, a number of
leading rights activists, including lawyers and journalists, have been
arrested in an attempt to silence dissent, activists say.

The latest
arrests were in Gweru on Friday where twenty-nine members from the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (ZESN) were picked up while attending a
meeting.

27 members were released the same day after spending 10 hours in
police detention at the Gweru central police station. Police had wanted to
charge them with attending an unlawful gathering, but decided against
it.

They however charged Emmaculata Chiseya, ZESN’s Public Outreach
Manager, and Lucy Chivasa of the Legal Resources Foundation, with organizing
an unlawful gathering and failing to notify the police of a gathering in
contravention of a Section the Public Order and Security Act
(POSA).

Chivasa and Chiseya were only released from custody on
Monday.In a statement released Monday, ZESN deplored the continued
harassment and intimidation of human rights activists.

ZESN
staff and taskforce member released

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) member of staff Emma
Chiseya and taskforce member Lucy Chivasa who were arrested by the police on
Friday have been released.

The two were arrested up by the police
on allegations of contravening Section 24 of the Public Order and Security
Act (POSA) and spent two nights in custody before being released yesterday.
According to their lawyer Brian Dube of Gundu and Dube Legal Practitioners a
member of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) the presiding
prosecutor had said the was no case. The case will now proceed by way of
summons if there is any new evidence.

ZESN deplores the continued
harassment and intimidation of human rights activists especially as the
country gears for elections set for 2013.

ZCTU
leaders arrested during Human Rights demo

Two Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders were
arrested in Bulawayo today Monday morning during a demonstration to
commemorate the Human Rights Day.

ZCTU Western Region Vice
Chairman Ambrose Sibindi and administrator Percy Mcijo were arrested after
police blocked the ZCTU demonstration at the Large City hall in the city
centre.

Speaking to journalists in Bulawayo, Reason Ngwenya, and ZCTU
Western Region Chairman said his deputy Sibindi and Mcijo were arrested
during a march to commemorate the Human Rights Day in the city centre as
police accused them of marching without their permission.

“There was
some confusion this morning which saw police arresting Mcijo and Sibindi
before taking them to Bulawayo Central police station. Last week the
Bulawayo Police District Regulatory Authority gave us a permission to go
ahead with the march. But we were shocked today when some overzealous junior
police officers blocked our march and arrested the two on allegations
organizing an illegal street march without police clearance. The two were
only released after we produced a clearance letter from police Bulawayo
District Regulatory Authority and the demonstration was allowed to proceed,”
said Ngwenya.

During the demonstration the morethan 400 ZCTU members
were carrying placards written “Respect Workers Rights,” Candles cannot
replace ZESA” and “We Need Revival of Bulawayo Industries”

The march
kicked off from ZCTU offices along 13th Avenue and passed through the High
Court and City Hall before it ended at the same offices.

Human Rights Day
is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December. The day was chosen
to honor the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on
10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The day is
normally marked both by high-level political conferences and meetings and by
cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues.

Zanu
PF admits losing support

President
Robert MugabeGWERU - President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party is bleeding
voters massively, losing almost 250 000 members over the past year.

A
central committee report tabled at the 13th national people’s conference
that ended in Gweru last night, states that the party had sold a paltry 266
550 membership cards by October 31, 2012, down from 513 832 cards sold by
end of October 2011.

That total is for membership cards sold in all
of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces and Zanu PF’s Diaspora branches in South Africa
and the United Kingdom.

Harare suffered the biggest loss in membership,
with 91 391 members in 2011 tumbling down to 20 626 by end of
October.

Manicaland also saw the membership sliding from 47 085 in 2011
to 18 752 now.

Mashonaland Central was almost static from 18 730 to
18 858, while Mashonaland East dropped to 97 936 from 100 565 members last
year.

Mashonaland West, Mugabe’s home province, suffered dramatic
collapse in membership from 46 718 in 2011 to 13 526 by end of October
2012.

Masvingo also saw membership falling from 21 928 to 10
743.

Matabeleland North and South both marginally lost membership from 7
948 and 11 425 respectively to 4 480 and 10 433. Bulawayo province increased
membership from 6 651 members in 2011 to 7 577 members now.

Midlands
bled membership massively from 161 394 members in 2011 to 63 500 by end of
October this year.

While the party failed to sell 3 000 cards sent to
South Africa last year, it managed to sell 119 cards this year.

In
the UK, the party failed to sell even a single card last year and this
year.

“It is imperative for the provinces to double their effort in
mobilising card sales in order to boost both our membership and revenue,”
the central committee report says.

As at the end of October 2012, the
party had raised $119 947 from membership cards and
subscriptions.

The Marxist leader maintained that elections will be held
early next year, notwithstanding his party's sliding membership
figures.

“If there is anything certain, it is that legally and
constitutionally, the inclusive government has to end,” Mugabe
said.

“Therefore, nobody should make any mistake about this because we
are going to hold elections early next year without fail as the law clearly
stipulates.”

Meanwhile, the party budgeted $2,6 million for the 13th
annual conference on top of the $6,5 million used to build the controversial
conference centre, dubbed the Hall of Shame.

This is despite the fact
that Zanu PF is in the red to the tune of $3 964 495, being a bank loan that
the party is struggling to service, according to the central committee
report. Under the Political Parties Finance Act, the 2012 budget allocated
$3,3 million to Zanu PF, but the party says it got only $1,9
million.

The party got donations of $2,5 million from undisclosed
“friends and well wishers.”

The party blew $725 241 on constitutional
meetings, with marathon politburo meetings that ran well into the night to
discuss the Copac draft gobbling $243 715.

Out of total expenditure
of $7 938 429, the major expenditure item was constitutional
meetings.

In a foreword to the central committee report, Mugabe blamed
the MDC for wasting 44 months haggling over the draft.

“Looking back
to April 2009 when Copac was set up, after a long, inexplicable and wasted
44 months, it is clear that the electoral cowards and enemies of the values
and ideal of our liberation struggle have violated public trust by abusing
their participation in the GPA-mandated constitution-making process to
sabotage our electoral process,” Mugabe said.

“Their prime motive is to
delay the holding of elections in order to extend their ill-gotten stay in
that awkward animal called the inclusive government whose policy gridlock
and non-performance have been a monumental betrayal of our people’s
legitimate expectations.” - Gift Phiri, Politics Writer

SA
‘unlikely’ to toughen KP diamond trade laws

South Africa is being urged to strengthen the mandate of
the international diamond trade watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP), when
the country takes over the rotating chairmanship of the body next
year.

The KP has faced serious criticism in recent weeks for endorsing
Zimbabwe’s diamond trade, and for lifting the oversight mechanisms that were
in place to ensure the country fell in line with international standards.
The KP has now insisted these standards have been met, despite widespread
concern that diamond profits from the Chiadzwa alluvial fields are being
used to entrench ZANU PF’s grip on power. There are also ongoing concerns of
human rights abuses and other illicit activity.

The KP’s argument is
that Zim has met the technical standards of international trade and that it
is does not have the mandate to deal with the other concerns raised. South
Africa’s impending role as Chair is now being touted as a potential
game-changer for the KP, with the country facing pressure to ensure the
mandate of the KP changes. Currently, the body’s narrow mandate does not
include anything on human rights.

Tiseke Kasambala, the Africa Advocacy
Director at Human Rights Watch, told SW Radio Africa that the KP risks
becoming ‘obsolete’ if there are not key changes made. She said Monday that
the decision to endorse Zimbabwe’s diamonds means ‘conflict diamonds’ are
being allowed into the mainstream market.

She also raised concerns
about South Africa taking over the Chairmanship role, because of the role
the country has played in ensuring that the restrictions on Zimbabwe’s
diamonds are lifted.

“South Africa has not always played a positive role
in the KP, especially with regards to Zimbabwe where they were at the
forefront of making sure the restrictions were lifted,” Kasambala
said.

She added: “In a perfect world South Africa should be pushing for a
revision of the conflict diamonds definition and explicitly include a human
rights role in the KP.”

Alan Martin, a campaigner with Partnership
Africa Canada (PAC), agreed that South Africa should be using its KP
chairmanship role to make changes. But he said this was unlikely,
particularly in terms of Zimbabwe’s trade future.

“The real challenge for
South Africa is that it will need to change its approach. Previously it has
said reforms are important, but has then done its utmost to scuttle those
reforms. This needs to change,” Martin said.

He added however that
whatever changes are made they are unlikely to impact on the recent
decisions on Zimbabwe, “because the KP has demonstrated it does not have the
political will to deal effectively with the country. Until such a time comes
that Zimbabwe is a serious issue, it will not feature on the KP
agenda.”

“The KP is no longer the first port of call in the fight against
blood diamonds. That debate will have to take place outside of the KP,”
Martin said.

Another point of controversy is the intention by China
to become the deputy chair of the Kimberley Process, a step that would hand
the country the chairmanship role in 2014. These intentions were voiced by
the outgoing KP chair from the US, with no mention of damning reports on
China’s role in Zimbabwe’s diamond trade. China has at least three diamond
mining operations in Zimbabwe and has turned a blind eye to human rights
abuses and smuggling. The country also stands accused of helping Zimbabwe’s
illicit trade, with its army previously being implicated in being part of an
“arms for diamonds” trade -off with Zimbabwe.

Civil
Servants Demand Contracts First Before Poll
Participation

Civil servants have warned that they
may not participate in the national constitutional referendum or elections
as polling officers if they are not given contracts.

This follows the
non-payment of allowances to civil servants who participated in the August
national census.

Sercretary general of the Progressive Teachers’ Union of
Zimbabwe said they had taken a cue from parliamentarians who refused to
pass the budget unless they were paid allowances.

“For the meantime,
we expect minister Biti to unpack his budget before January to prove that
there is an increment for civil servants,” Majongwe told the state – run
herald newspaper.

Civil servants are always used for national exercises
in return for allowances that they say are either too small or they come
late.

Said majongwe: “In the event that there is no meaningful increment,
there would be no point in participating in the events (referendum and
elections). We know that anyone who needs our vote in the election will push
that we get increments be it Zanu-PF, MDC-T or MDC.”

PTUZ regional
representative for Matabeleland, Enock Paradzayi tells Studio 7 civil
servants are tired of being used and not paid.

Walk
the talk, Zec tells Mugabe, Tsvangirai

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe and his bitter coalition partner
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai are battling pressure from the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (Zec) to put their houses in order.

The
electoral body has submitted a raft of demands that includes cars, cash,
lifting of government job freeze, full-time jobs and adequate notice to
ensure credible elections become real next year.

The demands include
a 90-day notice that could effectively mean Mugabe’s wish for March
elections is dead.

Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai agree that elections, which
are likely to be Zimbabwe’s hardest fought since the 1980 independence
polls, should go ahead next year.

But Zec appears far from convinced
that the two are doing enough to make this a reality despite the tough
public talk at political rallies and meetings.

The Daily News can
reveal that principals to the power-sharing Global Political Agreement have
received a plethora of demands from Zec which they are battling to deliver
on.

Besides the sticky issue of funding which has forced the coalition to
beg for funds from the United Nations and erstwhile enemies in the European
Union, the elections body has demanded eight weeks’ notice before the
referendum can be held and 90 days for the general election.

A copy
of the demands seen by the Daily News also reveals the election commission
needs cars, equipment refurbishment and staff to be fully operational before
any poll is held.

“Zec needs a waiver of government’s freeze on the civil
service staff recruitment policy for it to operate optimally. Of the 830
staff members required by the commission only 470 are available at the
moment and dotted around the country,” states Zec.

“We also would
like the commissioners to work full-time to make sure preparations proceed
unhindered. The commission also needs 131 cars,” Zec states.

The
Daily News has it on good authority, that apart from giving the go ahead to
Cabinet to seek funding from external sources, Mugabe and his coalition
partners last week agreed to allow Zec commissioners to start working on a
full-time basis.

This comes amid claims that Zec chairperson, the
Namibian-based jurist, Simpson Mutambanengwe is unhappy with the working
arrangements and lack of clarity from government on how the commission
should operate.

Mutambanengwe’s deputy, Joyce Kazembe, has been the
acting Zec boss during his lengthy absence.

The electoral body in its
plea to Mugabe and Tsvangirai said it had a budget of only $7 million, and
besides the cars, also required $23 million for equipment, training, voter
education material and salaries.

Tsvangirai confirmed in an interview
with the Daily News the electoral supervisory body had made the
demands.

“Zec told us it requires an eight week notice to adequately
prepare for the referendum. I am happy though that this process will only
require citizens to provide their national identity cards so they can vote.
So there is not much need for the voters’ roll on this one,” he
said.

“However, after that there is a very important exercise of voter
registration and I must say the Registrar-General (RG) has been placing
unnecessary barriers to those who want to register. That will need to be
looked at and make sure Zec plays its role of supervising the registration
of voters,” he said.

Mugabe and hawks in his former liberation
movement have been calling for elections since 2009 and in the past few
months the veteran Zanu PF strongman has declared the country will go to the
polls in March.

Tsvangirai maintains dates for elections are dependent on
the completion of a string of reforms, including media and security sector
realignments and the adoption of a new constitution.

“We cannot be
talking about dates when Zec has no money,” said Tsvangirai.

‘PM
will take keys to State House’ - Khupe

DEPUTY Prime Minister and MDC-T vice-president
Thokozani Khupe has called on party supporters to deliver “the keys to State
House” to their leader Morgan Tsvangirai next year.Khupe said people
should turn out in large numbers to give Tsvangirai a landslide victory over
President Robert Mugabe in next year’s polls.The DPM, who is also MP for
Makokoba in Bulawayo, made the remarks at a rally in her constituency where
she dispelled reports that she was in bad books with Tsvangirai.The
media reported recently that Tsvangirai wanted to discipline Khupe over
allegations of fanning factionalism and instigating violence in Bulawayo
ahead of the MDC-T congress 19 months ago.“You have the keys to State
House,” she said. “Take those keys and give them to President Tsvangirai and
he will open the doors to good life for you.”“A new Zimbabwe is only
possible if you vote for MDC-T. In Makokoba, we must have 20 000 votes so
that we achieve a new Zimbabwe. When voting, do that for a better life and
the future of your children.”Khupe said Tsvangirai two weeks ago launched
the economic blueprint called Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and
Environment (Juice) and in it “lies a better future for Zimbabweans”.“In
the next five years, if you vote for Tsvangirai the smoke which used to
characterise Bulawayo industry will be seen again,” she said. “We speak of
decent jobs and decent wages and that is what Juice stands for.”Speaking
at the same meeting, MDC-T deputy national organiser Abednicho Bhebhe said
it would be unwise for people to vote for Zanu PF leader President Robert
Mugabe next year.“You must not vote for a person whom you will start nursing
because of old age instead of him to run the country. You must stop being
ruled by a ‘mystery’.” - NewsDay

I'm
favourite to win Presidential elections - Ncube

MDC leader, Professor Welshman Ncube, has declared
himself the favourite to win next year’s Presidential elections and tipped
his party to sweep the majority of seats in Parliament and council elections
as he claims his party is better prepared for elections than other political
parties.“At the January congress that saw me become the president of MDC, we
came up with a strategy to woo voters and we believe it has paid dividends
as the numbers of people who are on our side have multiplied. We have been
holding rallies throughout Zimbabwe. We started early because we knew that
we were far behind the other political parties, namely Zanu-PF and
MDC-T.“We have been recruiting new members, mobilising and restructuring the
party. Our presence is felt in all the provinces of the country. We are not
a Matabeleland party but a national party and that will be reflected come
elections. We are confident of victory, victory is certain,” said Professor
Ncube.

Professor Ncube shot down claims that MDC has managed to hold
rallies all over Zimbabwe because it is bankrolled by foreign donors and
said their outreach was due to conviction and determination.

“One of
the reasons we started early on the campaign trail is because we do not have
the financial muscle of other political parties. We believe that by being
the early bird we will catch the worm. We are sponsored by businesspeople
who identify with our policies and party members. Some of the funds we
utilise are from our own pockets. We also use the 10 percent we got from the
Political Parties Finance Act. We believe that we have used this money
wisely compared to Zanu-PF and MDC.

“If we had access to foreign funds,
we would have new vehicles like other parties. We would be holding rallies
every week, but our rallies are staggered because we don’t have unlimited
funds. We have three rallies every two weeks because we are living within
our means,” he said.

Professor Ncube said the emergence of his party was
because they had fired former leader, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara.

“With (DPM) Mutambara, we had five years of stagnation,
virtually nothing took place. We have already said it was a mistake to have
Mutambara as president, but now we have the benefit of hindsight. It was not
only a mistake to elect him leader, it was a mistake post-congress because
we have had to deal with court battles. It has cost us time and money. We
believe (DPM) Mutambara’s actions to undermine the party have vindicated us.
We won’t make the same mistake again,” Professor Ncube
said.

Professor Ncube dismissed speculation that his party would close
ranks with MDC-T.

He said: “How can villagers unite with royalty?
(PM) Tsvangirai said we are villagers a few days back and he is royalty. Do
you think there is a chance of us uniting with such people? We are MDC and
we will not have pacts with other parties. We stand alone because what we
stand for is different from what other parties stand for.”

Zanu
PF presses for local currency, Biti resists

ZANU PF ended its conference in Gweru on Sunday by
adopting a resolution to push for the re-introduction of the local currency
and adoption of other currencies including the Chinese yuan as legal
tender.

Among several resolutions, President Robert Mugabe’s party which
shares power in a coalition government with the two MDC factions, said it
would “instruct government to work out modalities for the reintroduction of
domestic currency alongside the multi-currency system in order to address
the current liquidity crisis and to enable our people to carry out their
transactions.”

Zimbabwe abandoned its currency in 2009 after its
value was wiped out by hyperinflation which peaked at over 230 million
percent.

The country adopted a multiple currency regime which saw the
United States dollar, the South African rand and Botswana pula being used as
legal tender.

But if Zanu PF has its way, some form of local currency –
not necessarily the Zimbabwe dollar – could be introduced to be used
alongside the pula, rand and US dollar as well as the currencies of Brazil,
Russia, India and China.

The proposal is unlikely to find appetite
among Zanu PF’s coalition partners, including Finance Minister Tendai Biti
who is secretary general of the MDC-T party led by Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai.

Speaking at Manchester University, England, last Friday, Biti
said the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar had left Zimbabweans with mental
scars and confidence was still low.

But Biti said a bigger hurdle for
the local currency’s return is the slow recovery of the economy.“As I
speak, our imports are about US$7 billion and exports about US$3 billion –
so there is a ratio of 3:1. That essentially means we are running a very
dangerous current account,” Biti told an audience of academics and
students.

“Surely, you can’t return the Zimbabwe dollar when you
don’t have the economy to sustain it. Your local currency is a relationship
between your imports and exports, and if you have this skewed deficit in
your current account, in your balance of payment position, in your capital
account, you don’t have the economy to sustain a currency.”

Biti said
banks, which had increased their assets from a low base of US$200 million in
2009 to US$4,2 billion today, had played a major role in financing
Zimbabwe’s current account deficit as well as the millions of Zimbabweans
who live abroad who have been remitting an average US$350 million a
year.

Poacher
shot dead, 2 rifles seized

GAME rangers shot and killed a suspected poacher at
Kazungula National Park on Saturday – the second fatal confrontation in a
month, police said on Monday.

Four other poachers escaped in the
early morning raid on their camp in the Matetsi Unit Six area, a subdivision
of the sprawling game reserve.

Matabeleland North police spokesman
Inspector Billie Dube said on December 7, the rangers deployed at Quebec
base in Matetsi received information from Econet engineers working on a
facility along the Victoria Falls-Kazungula road who heard two gun shots in
the area.

Inspector Dube said: “The rangers made a follow up and came
across human tracks about 800m from the Econet facility and started tracking
until it got dark.

“The rangers then camped for the night before
resuming the search for the suspected poachers early the next
morning.“At about 6AM, the rangers intercepted five poachers at Camp 21.
They saw one of the poachers seated by a huge tree and opened fire on him,
killing him on the spot. The other four poachers managed to flea in
different directions.”

Two loaded assault rifles were recovered along
with three elephant tails, two cooking pots and a mobile phone with two
Zambian SIM cards.

The dead poacher, who has not been named, had seven
bullet wounds.

The dead man’s body is at the Victoria Falls Hospital
mortuary.Inspector Dube said game rangers were authorised to shoot to kill
in a high stakes game with poachers who are always armed to the teeth and
have previously fatally wounded rangers.

Mugabe
swings last missile

HARARE -
President Robert Mugabe made a powerful pitch for his re-election at the end
of the 13th Zanu PF annual convention but even some of his hardcore
supporters privately acknowledge his gamble is dicey.

Turning 89 in
February, Mugabe reinforced the indigenisation and empowerment policy as his
last ace up the sleeve in a race to overturn the March 2008 defeat to bitter
coalition partner Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

He touted his
controversial policy that forces foreign firms to surrender 51 percent
shareholding to locals and outlined he will be vigorously pursuing a 100
percent stake in a drive that critics say imperils foreign investment if he
wins a fresh term.

“In addition to developing our marginalised
communities and creating sustainable employment opportunities for our
youths, our indigenisation and economic empowerment policy must now give
real stake to our workers,” Mugabe said in a 148-page report tabled to the
conference.

“The employee share ownership schemes that have been
established in a number of key corporate organisations, whose compliance has
been notably high, are a clear and tangible direction of our party’s
indigenisation and economic empowerment policy.”

With one eye on a
looming presidential election, all sorts of people made it to the
conference.FROM PAGE 1Aside from the usual cronies and government officials,
young men and women from youth groups loyal to the ruling party such as
student group Zicosu suddenly found themselves in favour.

They do not
usually get much attention. But this is election time and every vote
counts.

The Mugabe campaign worked hard to whip up enthusiasm for the
empowerment drive at the conference, making Mugabe the centre of an
elaborate personality cult he has forged during his three decades plus in
power.

As Zimbabweans get ready to head to the polls for what looks
likely to be the most closely fought election since independence in 1980,
Mugabe pushed the indigenisation war cry.

“Our people expect the
policy of indigenisation and economic empowerment to transform and develop
our country’s hitherto marginalised communities that have been ravaged by
the effects of the evil and illegal sanctions,” Mugabe said.

“We must
be rest assured that there is no alternative to our indigenisation and
empowerment policy.”Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment — the
slogan turned up everywhere at the conference, from umbrellas shielding
delegates from the rain right down to T-shirts and even some of the water
bottles given away to keep supporters hydrated at the conference.

But
privately, even his most hardcore supporters acknowledge, Mugabe’s
experiment in indigenisation is dicey. After the chaotic grab of commercial
farms for redistribution to landless blacks — agriculture production has
plunged.

Mugabe proposed an economy run along the same rigid lines
that crippled eastern bloc economies for much of the 20th
century.

Foreign investors are closely watching the next election for
regime collapse at a time the electric utility has brought chronic blackout
throughout the country and the economy is slowly grinding to a halt, amid
the waste, corruption and mismanagement of incompetent central
planning.

Benefitting from one of the world’s largest diamond reserves,
critics say Zanu PF is kept afloat by a torrent of diamond dollars that
helped the party build the $6,5million conference centre in a short three
months.

“None of this revolutionary thrust is against foreign investment
since it is infact the foundation for genuine and sustainable foreign
investment,” Mugabe argued.

The veteran leader said he was happy the
conference had taken an unreserved and robust stance against political
violence. Still, his coalition partners doubt his sincerity — as do most
observers — and believe he will again try to stay in power through his tried
and tested means. Mugabe and Zanu PF have constantly been forced to deny
accusations of using violence during elections since 1980.

Senior
commanders now attend virtually all of Mugabe’s public appearances, and were
at the conference, reinforcing the image of a military state.

Almost
certainly, however, this will be one of those close Zimbabwe elections, like
1980, that may not be settled until the closing days.

In the wake of the
launch of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s economic blueprint, Juice, and
Zanu PF’s push for its empowerment agenda, more important, may be which camp
sets the agenda over the next weeks.

Tsvangirai wants the conversation to
be dominated by the nation’s persistent economic struggles — underscored by
the toxic effect of Mugabe’s indigenisation policy on the economy and jobs,
and the prospect of five more years of the same.

The MDC leader is
promising one million jobs in the first five years of his term and a $100
billion economy.

The Zanu PF candidate’s campaign seems intent on
accentuating, not playing down the unemployment crisis while pushing his
indigenisation economic prescription which critics say is in fact the
biggest threat to jobs.

“It is for this reason that many other countries
within our region and beyond have recently followed the example of our
indigenisation and economic empowerment policy by adopting laws and policies
similar to ours,” Mugabe said without naming the countries.

Mugabe
said he wants to focus on a violence-free, issues-based election and the way
he is repeating this message on the stump, is striking.

“The strength of
our mobilisation strategies and messages for the forthcoming make-or-break
election must be our superior ideology, policies and organisation as
Zimbabwe’s only vanguard and revolutionary party,” Mugabe said. “The
opposition MDC formations are ideologically bankrupt and have no policies to
offer.

“We know we will win the forthcoming elections thunderously and
convincingly and I therefore exhort you all to desist from tainting our
victory with any form of violence.”

The influence of money in this
presidential campaign cannot be underestimated.

The Mugabe campaign
enjoys a huge resource advantage; it has plenty of funds to be competitive
anywhere it chooses. - Gift Phiri, Politics Editor

We
are ready to die for Tsvangirai: Madzore

BEITBRIDGE - MDC youths say they are ready to die defending party
leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in the event “dark forces” prevent
him from taking power legitimately.

These are some of the bold
statements MDC youth leader Solomon Madzore has been making since being
released from remand prison last month.

“This time we are going to make
sure that our leader Morgan Tsvangirai goes straight into the State House
after winning elections and noone will stop him,” said Madzore during an
address to about 400 party supporters in Beitbridge on Saturday.

“We
are ready to die for Tsvangirai. We fear only God and not (President Robert)
Mugabe,” Madzore said.

Tsvangirai and many other Zimbabweans fear that
security sector commanders fiercely loyal to Mugabe will move to prevent the
former trade unionist from taking power if he wins against the 88-year-old
like he did in March 2008.

Repeated statements by some commanders and
Cabinet members such as Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa that the defence
forces would not allow Tsvangirai to take power even if he wins popular
vote, have deepened the worries.

Madzore and his MDC youth band
appear ready to tackle such a situation if the need arises at least
according to their daring public statement. In his Beitbridge address,
Madzore took aim at defence forces commander Constantine Chiwenga and police
commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri, two men who have publicly declared
their undying allegiance to Mugabe’s Zanu PF and have vowed never to salute
Tsvangirai.

“Chiwenga and Chihuri will have to salute Tsvangirai. If they
refuse we will just tell them to go. We need peace in Zimbabwe after next
year’s elections and Mugabe has to respect the will of the people,” said
Madzore, before going for the head.

“Mugabe must leave for Zvimba
(his rural home) after losing elections next year. We won’t allow him to
continue holding the future of Zimbabwe hostage,” said Madzore, who spent
more than a year in remand prison on a charge of killing a police
officer.

Devastated
Makone family mourn daughter’s death

Co-Home Affairs Minister Theresa Makone and her husband
Ian, a close aide to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday spoke of
their shock over the death of their 32 year-old daughter
Nyarai.

Nyarai was found hanged on Saturday morning at the family home,
in a suspected suicide, while her parents were away on a business trip to
Nairobi, Kenya with Tsvangirai. Both Theresa and Ian said the death of
Nyarai had left them devastated and traumatized. She was buried on Monday at
the Glen Forest cemetery near Domboshawa.

She apparently left a note
apologizing to her parents and sister. Highly placed sources said the note
read: ‘Dear family, I know it’s sad but I’m tired.’

Her mother
Theresa said: ‘This is so difficult for us. Nyarai was an articulate,
intelligent and caring young woman. Lately she has been very happy and doing
really well. Nyarai was not just my daughter, she was my best
friend.

‘I have dealt with people who have been bereaved but until
something awful like this happens to you, you can never understand how it
feels,’ she added. The Makone’s first born daughter Taneta posted a tribute
to her sister on her Facebook page.

She wrote: ‘All I can do is pray
and thank God for giving me this radiant lovely beauty that I called
‘Sister.’ Please join me, her friends and family, in offering your prayers
in remembrance of her.

She continued: ‘As some of you might now already,
Nyarai has been burdened with clinical depression for a little more than
eight years.

Every day of those eight years was a struggle in managing a
regime of countless medicines to manage the extremes of her condition,
visiting psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs, relying also on extensive
prayer, fasting, retreats, music, art and design, anything to restore
herself to a sense of equilibrium.’

Taneta added that ‘there are so
many living angels amongst us who did all they could to help my sister; some
took her into their homes abroad for respite and change of scenery, others
who involved her in community outreach programmes that she was passionate
about- anything to help lift the dark cloud of despair and doubt that
hovered over her.

I
am a messenger of hope: Tsvangirai

By Richard Chidza, Staff WriterMonday,
10 December 2012 09:31HARARE - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai declares he
is a “messenger of hope” who would never threaten his followers.

In
an exclusive interview with the Daily News on Sunday reporter Richard Chidza
(RC), Tsvangirai (MT) talks about the MDC, his deputy Thokozani Khupe,
resignation if he is defeated by President Robert Mugabe in next year’s
general elections among other issues. Here are excerpts.

MT: What came out of the
Maanda (Trust) commission report is too generalised, and for your own
information the DPM was never mentioned. We want specifics rather than
sweeping statements.

It makes it difficult to prosecute those that have
been fingered in the violence and we have asked the secretary-general
(Tendai Biti) to follow up with the commission and get specifics before the
chairperson will set up a national disciplinary committee.

The Khupe
issue is a lie and the journalist who wrote the article was asked by Luke
Tamborinyoka, (PM’s spokesperson) to provide evidence where I said that,
they cannot. It is a paper that is bent on maligning the deputy president to
the extent of saying people are defecting from the party in her
constituency. It is a media pre-occupation to create a rift between the
leadership of the party and create chaos.

RC: A lot has been said
about corruption and your failure to decisively deal with corrupt
councillors in particular.

MT: I will be the last to defend corruption.
We have acted on corruption and fired some councillors. When we are in a
collaborative environment you would not expect ministers to cause discord by
taking partisan positions. We fired councillors in Chitungwiza for
corruption and minister (Ignatius Chombo) re-instated them but later fired
them; if we were alone in government we would take a decision and implement
it.

We can only do so much as party within the power that we
have.

RC: You have told everybody who cares to listen that your party has
friends across the world. Have they assisted you in any way since you joined
government?

MT: We could not have been where we are without
them.

They have helped with lots of money. Through the Health and
Education Transition Funds that have transformed the lives of our children
and pregnant mothers.

The 2000 boreholes we will be sinking in
Mashonaland West, Matabeleland South and North and Masvingo under the Wash
(water sanitation and hygiene) programme are all testimony to the
partnerships we have around the world.

RC: So you have learnt a lot from
Zanu PF?

MT: The only variable in government that has brought some sense
of stability and semblance of positive performance in government is the MDC.
We were inexperienced but we had a plan. Now we have the experience and the
narrative here is have we made an impact and a positive impact.

There
is no need for the MDC to harp on about it, Zimbabweans should judge us and
we need a chance to be judged cleanly.

RC: Is Morgan Tsvangirai ready to
give up his post in the party if he loses the presidential election next
year?

MT: I am not under any pressure to make that decision now and if
there are any people who have been misled by those reports they need to calm
down. I intend to see through my five-year term and I will be here until the
next congress.

I am a messenger of hope and cannot be a carrier of
bad news. I cannot be discouraging my own supporters or threatening them. We
will win the next elections.

Is
Zanu PF richer than the state?

While government has been scrambling for funds to buy medicines
and build “a shack” for next year’s United Nations tourism meeting,
President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF splurged $6,5 million on a Gweru
conference facility for its annual gathering.

This, observers say, is
not only embarrassing, but typifies the octogenarian leader’s misplaced
priorities since 1980.

With tourism authorities announcing three weeks
ago that about 800 to 1 000 delegates are expected for the United Nations
World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) summit, the Victoria Falls jaunt “hangs
in the balance” due to logistical problems, including a lack of conferencing
facilities for the participants from across the world.

Although
Tourism minister Walter Mzembi is “ever so optimistic about a miracle” to
salvage the situation and the country’s image, he denies his party is being
profigate in splashing on a potential “white elephant” than a national
project to support an industry once earning the country in excess of $6
billion a year.

“We have, however, received a commitment from the Finance
ministry that funds for the conference in Victoria Falls will be made
available in a fortnight, so there is no crisis at all, ” he
said.

“Those are two different events and you cannot link the two.
However, government — for that matter one of national unity — should be
ashamed that Zanu PF has managed to build such a facility,” Mzembi
said.

While it is known that Mugabe’s party is broke — with
non-performing loans at one key bank — it is surprising how the ex-majority
party has managed to fund such activities as the Midlands facility, which
the youthful minister dubs “best investment decision ever”.

In fact,
Zanu PF secretary for administration and fundraising committee chairperson
Didymus Mutasa hinted that all was not well with their fundraising
activities ahead of the Gweru conference.

Dubbed the “hall of shame” by
Zimbabweans miffed by Zanu PF’s insensitivity, given the sorry state of
Gweru companies including Bata, the monstrous 5 000-seater superstructure
was built on the fringes of the Midlands capital with the help of Chinese
funders.

With many asking where Mugabe and his party — leading one of
Africa’s alleged failed states — are getting the money to bankroll such a
project, there are growing fears of “Mobuto-cracy” here and where the late
Congolese dictator had more money than the state.

David Coltart, a
lawyer and Zimbabwe’s Education minister, lamented the situation, as his
ministry continues to survive on the goodwill of donors.

“We have a
warped system in Zimbabwe; a history of misplaced priorities (such as) this
hall in Gweru and the military college in Mazowe constructed to the tune of
$100 million. If that money had been channelled towards the rehabilitation
of schools, then we would have improved the learning institutions,” he
said.

Schools around the country are in a state of disrepair with
children having to learn seated on hard floors or perched on stumps under
the cover of trees.

Coltart, whose ministry has only been given $8
million for this year said he has engaged the ministry of Finance over lack
of funding.

“I have talked to Finance minister Tendai Biti over budget
allocation to the education sector and I should say he was very sympathetic
unfortunately he has little room to manoeuvre. We need a complete change in
our priorities,” said Coltart.

With nearly two million people on the
government housing waiting list, Housing minister Giles Mutsekwa says it is
“extremely embarrassing” for Zanu PF to be splashing $6,5 million on the
hall.

“When I heard about the... hall in Gweru I was shocked. Zanu PF is
our partner... (and) for them to splash such an amount on a hall is
embarrassing. I am struggling to give people houses because the government
is broke,” he said.

“If I had been given that (kind of) money, we
could have built houses for more than 300 people.

“For instance, the
Willovale Flats were built for $8 million,” Mutsekwa added.

Dewa
Mavhinga, a political analyst, said Zanu PF must do some serious
soul-searching.

“The first question for Zanu PF is: where is the
money coming from? But perhaps a more important question is: why throw such
lavish and obscene sums towards the construction of a hall when the people
of Zimbabwe have numerous urgent and pressing needs, including the health
sector, clean water or general support to the ailing
economy?

“This... points to a party out of touch with the people; a party
in cloud cuckoo land,” he said.Mutasa said the hall was about “comfort
and nothing to be embarrassed about”.

“People are not struggling because
of the hall; people are suffering because Tsvangirai brought sanctions to
this country. There is absolutely no connection between the hall and the
lack of service in the country,” he said.

Apart from splashing on an
isolated “conference centre”, Mugabe’s party has also bought 400 cars for
next year’s polls. — Weekend Post

Zimbabwe: speaking from where I feel safe

Many women in Zimbabwe face war in their homes daily and
face war with the state when we try to overcome it. Often we find ourselves in
combat when all we are actually trying to do is to crawl out of our own small
room, says Betty Makoni.

Since birth, I have never lived in peace in my own
county, Zimbabwe. I was born during colonialism and everything I learnt was
about a war which had raged on for years where blacks were fighting for
liberation. Since independence, we have had thegenocideof Matabeleland, thefarm invasionsof 2000 and three decades of bloody
elections. In 2005, state sponsored violence left women and children homeless
and livelihoods permanently destroyed. Thepolitical violencewhich ensued in 2008 gave many women
and girls little time to recover. Many have never recovered. We have had to
rebuild almost every year and engage in fake reconciliation and peace programs
that last as long as those who rule us want. We need to ask what peace means for
the women of Zimbabwe.

Most lives and rights are lost in economic wars. One
consequence of the most recent violence has been a large number of girls falling
pregnant and dropping out of school and an increase in the number of brothels:
women are giving their bodies in order to live. For when the Zimbabwean economy
fell, it crumbled on women. It is women who provide a basic meal. Faced with
economic challenges, and even starvation, some women are going to South Africa.
Many are losing their lives and thousands more are raped when they try to cross
the border.

The women of Zimbabwe are facing a kind of silent
victimisation and silent pain as families disintegrate and many fathers turn
their daughters into wives. Women who have come over to England to secure a
better life for their families and left their daughters back home live in a
state of fear. Some hear reports that their daughters have been raped or are
struggling to eat.

Many women in Zimbabwe face war in their homes
day-to-day and some women, like me, face war with the state when we try to
overcome it.

At war in the home

My own experience of peace in Zimbabwe was shattered
age 6, when I was raped whilst vending on the streets. It was during the 1970s
when the whole of Zimbabwe was at war and this kind of case simply wasn’t of
concern to most people. It was the norm to rape a girl for whatever reason. My
mother was murdered in domestic violence shortly after, and with war raging on
elsewhere, the death of a woman in the home mattered just as little as the rape
of a small girl.

I
never went to war with guns, but the many wars that subsequently spilled into
our homes claimed the lives of many girls and women I knew. Those were the women
who inspired me to startGirl Child Networkin Zimbabwe
in 1998, and to establish the first girls empowerment village for girls fleeing
violence in Rusape in 2001.

We were able to set up the first girls empowerment
village by reviving an old cultural practice that accords royalty to girls. 400
years ago, my great, great, great aunt migrated from Tanzania to Zimbabwe where
she fought in a war alongside men. When she defeated men, her brother said “I
won’t abandon you, you are also going to be royal. She was given the title
Muzvare (Her Royal Highness) and that’s why I also have a title today. As a
result of my aunt’s bravery, women were given chieftainship in her village,
which meant that as a woman she was respected and you wouldn’t touch her. This
is the tradition I revived in the town. I demonstrated to the chief that we
could plant a positive culture and respect for human rights that would bring
prosperity to the village. The piece of land the chief donated became like royal
shrine where girls who were raped could come to feel their
greatness.

Often, when girls report to their local authorities
that they have been the victims of violence they cannot go back to their abusers
or their village and so they make their way to an empowerment village. This is a
one-stop shop where they can get counselling, administrative support and
education. There is also a clinic for girls who are HIV positive. School
teachers run empowerment clubs in within the villages, and we also train girls
in peer counselling so that they can support one another. We cover questions
such as, how do you ask another girl about her experiences? How do you report a
case? With the girls supporting each other, the information comes out more
quickly than in other forums. At the empowerment village the girls are also
re-registered in schools; even if they are attending court they must be in the
nearest school. The local police work with us to monitor the girls, and the
courts work with us to secure justice. Everything the police officers do is
monitored and written on a card which the girl keeps. This helps us to help her
make sense of the jargon, and also to ensure that she knows where and when she
has to be in court. This is all part of empowering a girl to demand
justice.

Between 1998 and 2008 alone, the Girl Child Network
movement empowered over 300,000 girls to respond to violence and to reclaim
their right to peace and housed over 70,000 girls from all across Zimbabwe at
girls’ empowerment villages. One girl from a village 400 kilometres away had
been raped by a traditional healer who sucked out some of her blood in a ritual.
While we kept her in safety, her perpetrator could not get to her and he was
locked up. The support of the local police enabled us to transfer her files so
that we had the authority to demand that her trial be heard in the village
rather than in her home town by a biased court. Our job was just to let the girl
tell her story and secure justice. This girl’s case was one of the 80% of cases
that lead to a prosecution.

There are now four empowerment villages in Zimbabwe.
Some of the girls who first came to find sanctuary there are now women who have
taken over their leadership while I live in self-imposed
exile.

At war with the state

The last thing any human rights defender wants to do is
to leave her home, work and settle in a foreign country. This was my last option
during my time of despair and persecution in 2008; only the man I shared my home
with knew as I grabbed my handbag and sped out of the door to run for
safety.

My work at the women’s empowerment villages was
extremely dangerous and put me in direct conflict with the Zimbabwean state and
thousands of local actors. An 80% prosecution rate equates to around 4,000 men
in jail each year. You can times that by ten to count the number of angry
relatives out there and work out for yourself the risks we ran. The most
dangerous cases were rape cases linked to Johane Marange apostolic churches.
When I was arrested, a senior police intelligence officer who belonged to the
church told me that if I had no alternative to girls being given away to appease
spirits, or to God’s consent for a girl to marry a man, then I should keep my
mouth zipped shut. In 2008 I was incarcerated for targeting a church that had
strong political links.

My autobiography,Never Again, describes the state persecution I
experienced as a result of my work defending girls’ human rights. Some of this
persecution constituted outright criminalisation; other forms were more subtle,
like mental torture wearing you down.

In 2002, I was arrested for operating Girl Child
Network as a trust instead of a ‘PVO’(another form of organisation), even though
the two are exactly the same. I spent a whole year in and out of the courts. I
had a choice to leave girls dying at my doorstep or use a deed of trust to
continue my work and save lives. I chose the latter.

In 2004 I was banned from conducting rescue missions
for girls in forced marriages and a letter was sent all over the country stating
that police were not allowed to accompany us on rescue missions. In some cases
we rescued girls from forced marriages and brought them to empowerment villages
so that the churches could not remarry them. A church linked to the ruling party
had lodged complaints that we were destroying their marriages with young
girls.

In 2005, I was arrested and labelled a threat to
national security for giving testimony about the rape of girls and home
demolitions to Anna Tibaijuka, UN Envoy for human settlements. All my office
files were seized. Out of over 2000 leaders of civil organisations who testified
and gave written testimonies, I was the only one singled out in a government
newspaper. I spent a week in and out of the police station. During
interrogation, the government told me this case against me was
“unforgivable”.

In 2006, I was arrested for my work with girls who had
testified about the ‘virgin myth’, a myth current at the time that sex with
virgins could cure HIV/AIDS. A media blackout was imposed on me and all my
finance files and donor agreements, receipts and client files were seized by the
Central Intelligence. When they were returned back to our offices after a month
several files were missing.

In 2007, just before the 2008 bloody elections, I was
again arrested together with film Director Michealene Risley who came to
document cases of girls raped because of the virgin myth in the filmTapestries of Hope.

I
had first become aware of the ‘virgin myth’ back in the late 90s when a 13 year
old girl called Leona reported to me that she had been raped at knife point by
her mother’s boyfriend. The man, it turned out, was trying to extract her first
blood as a virgin. After breaking her hymen, he had started sucking it out with
his mouth. He had been prescribed this ‘treatment’ by a witch doctor as a cure
for HIV. Similar cases emerged and I discovered that you could see a certain
trend. In 2001, I published a document called 1,000 Worst Cases of Rape in
Zimbabwe where I made the myth public. From 2005, the government privately
acknowledged the issue and arrests increased. One prominent case was that of
Macheke, a HIV positive man who raped close to 51 girls one after another. Quite
a few high profile people in churches were also arrested. One of them, Katsio
Katsiru, fought to bring me down.

The government launched a defamatory media campaign
against me, labelling me a child abuser, and I received death threats including
one saying that I would be murdered by one of my staff members. I knew that the
many rape cases perpetrated by high profile political figures had landed me in
danger because some hard copies of the information we had gathered was never
returned to us when our files and computers were confiscated by
police.

In March 2008, a group of secret undercover police
tried to bribe me to pay a US$ 8000 protection fee to be saved from abduction,
and I later learnt from one of them that my abduction was planned for 18 March.
I escaped to South Africa on 17 March 2008. After I had fled, other women human
rights defenders likeJestina Mukoko were
abducted and only found after several months.

From the local to the
global

In June 2008, when reports of women and girls being
sexually tortured in youth militia bases reached me, I said enough is enough and
became an activist in exile. I set up an empowerment house in Botswana and
mobilised the international community to help women deposit evidence of rape as
a weapon of war so that it could be preserved for future prosecutions. Starting
a women and girls empowerment centre in neighbouring Botswana worked well as the
women testified in an environment that was peaceful and where they did not have
to hold back their trauma. They went back to Zimbabwe healed and looking
forwards, armed with basic counselling skills to help rebuild their communities.
I wanted the women to know that one day they would have justice and so they
shouldn’t destroy evidence.

Replication of our model in Sierra Leone, Uganda, South
Africa and Swaziland in recent years has helped us to run projects on the ground
to protect girls and also build a global network of supporters to help us target
policy makers. These days, one does not necessarily need to be physically
present to do advocacy work: technology connects us. Some high profile rape
cases we get are easy to deal with because women and girls are in a safe place
where they feel they can speak out. At the same time, those on the ground can
keep feeding us information. My work is to speak from wherever I feel I am safe.
To be strategically positioned from the village to the global level transmits
our work much faster. Yes I am still in exile, and these days I am cyber bullied
on the internet daily - this is a new tactic to target women human rights
defenders. But at least my work continues with those who know my good intentions
to save the most vulnerable.

When people think about wars in Africa, they think
about tanks and international troops, but there are countries with no official
war like Zimbabwe where a girl must fight. Sometimes we find ourselves in combat
when all we are actually trying to do it to crawl out of our own small room.
These are women organising political rallies in order for us to have democracy.
These are the foot soldiers toiling on the ground for economic empowerment and
ensuring their basic human rights are protected. These are the heroes who have
watched as every bullet went past their falling hut. These are the women we want
to think of as target beneficiaries when in reality they are the ones who defend
rights of the most vulnerable.

This article is adapted form a presentation given at
therecent conference,‘Women Human Rights Defenders: Empowering and
Protecting the Change-makers’ held by Peace Brigades International with the
support of GAPS-UK, Womankind and Amnesty International UK and the British All
Party Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security.

Read other articles in this series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender
Violence.

Robert
Mugabe, my husband: 'he chose me' gushes Zimbabwe's first lady

Grace
Mugabe, married to Africa's oldest leader, says her husband is 'supportive
of women' and a 'fine gentleman'

David Smith, Africa
correspondent

The Guardian, Monday 10 December 2012 17.00
GMT

To his political foes and western critics he is a
cold-hearted tyrant blamed for bloodshed and national decline. To his wife,
however, Robert Mugabe is a supportive, God-fearing family man who is never
without his rosary.

Grace Mugabe, the first lady of Zimbabwe, was not
talking to Oprah Winfrey but speaking at the opening of a children's home,
the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper reported, when she told the love story
ofAfrica's oldest leader.

"I was very young when I started living
with President Mugabe, but he was patient with me and took time to groom me
into the woman that I am now," Grace, 47 and four decades his junior, was
quoted as saying. "Some of you see me doing all this charity work and reckon
that it is all my thinking and doing, but that is not the case. "VaMugabe is
very supportive of women because he knows kuti musha mukadzi [a woman makes
a home]. He supports me in everything I do unlike other men who do not
encourage their wives' entrepreneurial skills because they always want to
feel superior by being the breadwinners and having women ask them for money
every time."

Grace – dubbed "DisGrace" by her enemies – was married to an
air force pilot when she became Mugabe's secretary, then his mistress, while
the president's Ghanaian first wife, Sally, was dying from cancer. After her
divorce, she married Mugabe in 1996 in a Catholic mass hailed by local media
as the "wedding of the century". He was 73 when she gave birth to their
third child.

"Every day, I make it a point to thank VaMugabe for
making me the first lady of Zimbabwe," Grace said in the speech last week.
"There are a lot of beautiful women in Zimbabwe, but he chose me, a village
girl, and made me his wife.

"After I got into state house, I said to
God, 'Father I did not grow up in a fancy house, but I want to make sure
that I provide such facilities to children who have been orphaned'. That is
when I told the president about my dream to set up a children's home and he
has been very supportive from day one."

Mugabe, 88, is striving to
groom their sons into "fine gentlemen" just like their father, the first
lady says. "They might be members of the family, but my sons cook meals for
the family. I have one daughter, so I realised that the workload of
household chores would suffocate me and decided to come up with a plan that
sees them cook for the family regularly.

"I must say they are good at it.
Making them cook even when the family has helpers is my way of making them
appreciate life and prepare them to be husbands who appreciate their
wives."

There was reportedly enthusiastic applause at the Midlands
Children's Home in Gweru when Grace added: "As women, we teach men almost
everything, including how to dress, but it seems we have not done much in
teaching them that they can also cook and help with household
duties."

Mugabe was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the elite
mission school Kutama College, where he was mentored by an Irish priest.
Grace claimed faith was still central to his life. "He has the ability to
remain calm even when everything appears to be going wrong. I believe that
calmness is divine because my husband is very religious.

"He prays
the Catholic way and always moves with his rosary in his pocket … Even when
he changes clothes he makes sure that rosary is in his pocket.

"It is
something he was taught by his mother and he still practices it up to this
day. His mother taught him that protection comes from God and that is the
reason why he always takes principled and God-fearing positions even when
everyone is on the other side."

Grace is infamous for lavish overseas
shopping trips and launched her own dairy products earlier this year. In a
separate report at the weekend, she was quoted as saying that the Mugabes'
19-year-old son, Robert Jr, had been forced to abandon his dream of playing
professional basketball in America because of US
sanctions.

Ruramai’s Story – International
Human Rights Day 2012

Ruramai was married young, at 15. The age of sexual
consent in Zimbabwe is 16.

When she got married, her now late husband, Simbarashe,
was a self-employed cross-border trader who spent most of his time travelling to
faraway places such as Dar-es-Salam, Lusaka, Gaborone and Johannesburg to buy
clothing for resale back home. This is a common pastime for many in Zimbabwe, a
country with an employment rate estimated at over 90 percent.

Ruramai’s father, Zakaria, is a polygamist with six
wives and 29 children. Ruramai’s mother is ‘wife number two’, and she has five
daughters. Zakaria is old and unemployed, feeding his large family through
subsistence farming.

Ruramai’s entire life has been one of being at the
receiving end of violence against women.

Like many large families in remote areas of rural
Zimbabwe, it is not uncommon to decide not to educate the girl child. Ruramai’s
situation is not an exception: she received only 3 years of primary school
education before she joined the long line of her sisters and half-sisters as the
main providers of labour on Zakaria’s farm.

Denial of an education was Ruramai’s first real taste
of gender-based abuse, and by having her labour exploited as a child on her
father’s farm, she was further subjected to another form of abuse; namely, child
labour. To cap all this, she was married off to Simbarashe at the tender age of
15. This was, undeniably, an act of abuse against her by both her father and
Simbarashe.

In some cases the act of marriage is expected to be a
blessing, but in the case of Ruramai the act failed to break the cycle of abuse.
Although her husband loved and respected her, he was almost always away from
home and so she assumed all the responsibilities of running a home at a very
tender age, assuming the roles of both mother and father to her
children.

The errand nature of her husband’s occupation meant
Ruramai did not fully enjoy connubial rights as did other young married women.
Although she understood that her husband was justified in spending a lot of time
away from home in order to earn a living for the family, it pained her, and it
can be argued too that this fact constituted a further denial of her rights as a
woman.

One evening Simbarashe arrived home from a long trip to
Dar-es-Salam and he looked weak and sick. He told his wife that he had fallen
sick while in Dar-es-Salam and had visited a doctor there who had advised him to
take an HIV test, which he had done. The result had been positive, meaning that
Simbarashe carried the HIV virus that causes the deadly AIDS
disease.

For the first time Simbarashe disclosed to Ruramai that
he had been seeing two women: one in Gaborone and the other in Dar-es-Salam. He
told her that he had a sickly daughter with the woman in Gaborone, and that the
woman in Dar-es-Salam had suffered two miscarriages and she had been sick for a
long time.

Ruramai was devastated by the disclosure, and she cried
all night. She visited the clinic the following morning, where she took an HIV
test which confirmed that she too had the virus. By now Ruramai had two
daughters: the youngest was 6 and in her first year at school.

Neither Simbarashe nor Ruramai were put on
anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs immediately. The clinic advised them that they would
be put on ARVs only after their CD4 count had fallen to below a certain figure.
They were therefore advised to visit the clinic regularly for
checkups.

Simbarashe continued with his trips, but as he grew
weaker and his health deteriorated his trips had became less frequent and,
consequently, profits gradually plummeted. He was eventually put on drugs after
his CD4 count had fallen to below the figure 350, but he did not respond well to
the medication and he eventually died.

As per tradition, Simbarashe’s property was shared
among his close relatives. Ruramai had been the most highly prized piece of
‘property’ that Simbarashe had left behind, and so she was ‘given’ to his
younger brother, Robson. Robson, who was unmarried and had just secured a job in
Masvingo town as a clerk, had also taken over Simbarashe’s surviving children as
his own, and had immediately relocated to Ruramai’s homestead to share the
bedroom with her.

Despite the fact that Simbarashe exhibited all signs of
HIV and AIDS during his long illness, and despite the fact that Ruramai was HIV
positive herself, Robson, in his wisdom (or lack of it) found it difficult to
act against tradition. Ruramai, as was expected, had also been powerless to
decide on her future because she was part of the deceased’s property, and her
fate had to be determined by the late Simbarashe’s nephew, the executor of his
late uncle’s estate. She had to prepare herself to endure yet another round of
abuse. But why, she must have asked herself? The answer is simply because she is
a woman. Period!

Within a year of Robson having moved in with Ruramai,
the two were blessed with a son and Robson named him Simbarashe, perhaps as an
act of gratitude for having been left a woman by his relative. Ruramai had now
started taking ARV medication and, on the advice of the doctors, she had not
breast-fed Simbarashe Junior. Luckily for her, she responded well to the
medication and all the signs her sickness vanished.

Hardly a year after the birth of Simbabrashe Junior,
Robson was taken ill, and his condition fast deteriorated. Within a couple of
months he had wasted away so much he could hardly walk without the support of
Ruramai. He was admitted to Masvingo Provincial Hospital where he tested
HIV-positive and was immediately placed on drugs. But it was too late, he
succumbed to the dreadful disease and died within a month.

Ruramai was widowed once again and, as before, she
awaited the executor’s next move.

Two years passed by after Robson’s death, and nothing
had happened. Ruramai met and fell in love with a widower who lived in the city.
They were both HIV-positive. They dated secretly until one day they bumped into
a villager who knew Ruramai well.

Robson’s people were alerted to the relationship and
life immediately changed for Ruramai once again. They called for a family
meeting at which they accused Ruramai of having brought a curse into the family
by having a love affair before the family had conducted the‘kurova
guva’(literally translated‘beating
the grave’) ceremony, an important traditional ritual that is carried out
at least a year after the death of a man or woman who has left behind offspring.
The purpose of the ceremony is to bring the spirit of the deceased back into his
home to protect his offspring.

The family meeting led to the members taking drastic
measures against Ruramai for having defiled their home. An emissary was sent to
meet Ruramai’s family to demand back part of the dowry that had been paid to
them by Simbarashe when he had married Ruramai. The emissary also demanded that
Ruramai’s family take her back, since by her disobedience she had effectively
forfeited her right to remain in her matrimonial home.

Another emissary was sent to meet Ruramai’s lover to
claim six herd of cattle as compensation for dating a married
woman.

Ruramai’s case is not an isolated one. Thousands of
women in Zimbabwe go through similar experiences, if not worse. In my view,
these acts are all forms of abuse against women, the psychological impacts and
long term life consequences equally as devastating as the physical form of
violence that tends to attract more attention from the government and
non-governmental organizations.

As we arrive today at the conclusion of the ’16 Days of
Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign’, coinciding with International Human
Rights Day, it is time to redefine our understanding of gender-based violence
with the view to bringing to the front cases such as Ruramai’s, and to mobilise
communities to fight this gross violation of the rights of
women.

Ruramai and those in her circumstances deserve our
help!

This entry was posted by MadZimbabwe on
Monday, December 10th, 2012 at 1:06 pm.